Re: how to get published
Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Fri, 24 Sep 1999 23:34:07 +0100
'... What people post to listserves and what they put
out when they're Really writing are two different
things ...'
That's certainly what Tim asserted some time ago.
But I wonder. I don't doubt we all take greater
care with our more serious stuff. Yet it seems to me
that in the gossipy, informal letters of Hemingway,
Fitzgerald, Woolf, Waugh, Greene, Rowse, Nicolson,
of almost any good writer whose correspondence has
been put out to the public there remains the tell-tale
vitality, the attack, the imprint of style & attitude
that informs their more considered work. I simply
find it difficult to believe that what you would
presumably call a REAL writer can easily put his name
to conscious crap.
And I STILL think that if I'd been turned down by
38 - thirty eight - agents I'd be less than wholly confident
about the value - or at least the marketability - of my offerings.
Scottie B.